My guild, and my realm in general, has a tank shortage. This is neither new nor unusual; in my experience, tanks have always been the most in demand on most servers (although that may be colored by the fact that my main is a
healer). So I've decided to level a tank. The problem is, I've decided that a few times now, which means I currently have one of each tanking class languishing in the level 40 range somewhere: a
paladin, a
druid, and a
warrior. And I just can't decide which one to work on, or even if I should bother as opposed to just waiting until
Wrath of the Lich King comes out and I can get an instantly-level-55
Death Knight for a tank.
What do you guys think? What's funnest to level? What makes the best tank for heroics/early raiding? Which one should I drag out of Stranglethorn, kicking and screaming, ultimately into Outland and beyond?
Which class should I level to 70?| Druid | 2658 (24.8%) |
|---|
| Paladin | 3293 (30.7%) |
|---|
| Warrior | 2652 (24.7%) |
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| Wait for Death Knight | 2132 (19.9%) |
|---|
Tags: druid, leveling, paladin, polls, tanking, tanks, warrior
Filed under: Druid, Paladin, Warrior, Polls, Breakfast Topics, Leveling, Alts, Death Knight
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Jun 2nd 2008 at 8:00AM 
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 5)
Zali Jun 2nd 2008 12:15PM
Eliah,
The relevent comment in your post:
"So I've decided to level a tank. The problem is, I've decided that a few times now, which means I currently have one of each tanking class languishing in the level 40 range somewhere: a paladin, a druid, and a warrior."
Maybe I'm interpreting that incorrectly, but the impression I get is that you level up a particular alt, and become bored with it. The word "languishing" is probably the key to that. To become weak, feeble. To continue in miserable conditions. To be neglected or unattended.
From that statement I get the impression that you get no joy from those toons, and so they have been abandoned. If that is not the case, and that you love each one, but just don't have the time to level them, then I retract my suggestion that you just don't like tanking.
But, my statement that leveling a toon for the sake of others isn't really a good idea, well that one still stands. If you don't want to play it, then don't. You'll start to resent your guild for getting in the way of you having a good time because they will always "need" you to run heroic pain in the a$$ when you need to farm whatchamacallit.
Do it for fun!
Calaana Jun 2nd 2008 8:35AM
Pally for your five man/heroics/kara level type stuff. Not the greatest to level, but everyone seems to love us.
Plus, y'know, anyone you don't like you can announce as part of the scourge and that makes it alright to cleanse the world of them! :D
Culhag Jun 2nd 2008 8:44AM
Paladin tanks seem to be pretty popular lately.
This makes me jealous cause I'm a pally and I want to tank, but I'm more often needed as a healer. (I have T5 gear for both specs)
In fact I only ever get to tank on Hyjal trash waves.
I thus recommand to level a warrior ; you won't risk to be denied tanking because of another useful spec.
Epimer Jun 2nd 2008 8:48AM
The healing alternative spec is another of the reasons why I chose paladin over warrior. Another potential shortage met! Granted, I'm not aiming for a particular raid slot but 5-man utility.
zappo Jun 2nd 2008 11:48AM
Totally agree with Epimer.
If you're leveling a character to fill a slot, then it's best to level one with the most versatility. Druids fit the bill here, but a pally is just as well. Seriously, how often are you SHORT dps? Boombkin, bear, cat, caster - a druid can fill a tank slot, AND any future shortages. I prefer pally tanks btw :p
Annai Jun 2nd 2008 8:45AM
Druid. You can tank now if you want and learn some of the skillset and then convert to a Tree or Boomkin later if you find the style of tanking with the Deathknight more to your liking. Each option has it's alternatives, but the Druid seems most versatile. Stay feral, but go DPS. Tree-form healing. Boomkin caster DPS and utility.
con-man Jun 2nd 2008 8:49AM
fuzzy armor is your friend
xfr3386 Jun 2nd 2008 9:15AM
As the first poster said it really depends what you want to tank. You said heroics/early raiding.
For heroics i'd say paladin, hands down. AoE tanking in heroics is incredible. A paladin would do find in Kara as a main tank as well, but not as well as a druid/warrior. However, i hated leveling a paladin. AoE grinding is boring, and questing as a paladin just isn't as fun as other classes.
For fun of leveling, versatility, flight form! and overall awesomeness i'd say go druid. You won't find any class that is as fun to level (Warlock is tied).
raven Jun 4th 2008 9:19AM
I would also go with a druid. I'm in a similar position: holy paladin main with a level 60 druid that I've been trying to find time for. Druids are fairly easy to gear up compared to paladins and warriors, who need *lots* of raid love.
Paladins and Warriors both need pretty good gear to tank, and when not tanking, they're both pretty useless. In contrast, druids tank pretty well with some good BoE and quest rewards, and they can always just go dps-kitty form while a main tank goes to work.
Jessierockeron Jun 9th 2008 6:21AM
I see your point about the druid thing but pally's and warr's can be far from useless when they aren't tanking. Pally's can where plate when they heal so they don't die as fast and same thing goes for warrs when they dps.
Jessierockeron Jun 9th 2008 6:23AM
Where = wear
id Jun 2nd 2008 9:24AM
Really, it depends on what you want to do with it in the end. If you want to go hardcore end-game tanking, the warrior is probably the best choice. If you want fun - druid, then pally. Hybrids are much easy (and fun) to level, especially druids. And if your guild is casual, respeccing abilities of hybrids will come very handy.
Thauron Jun 2nd 2008 9:28AM
Well.... this is quite the question.
After having a 70 DPS class for so long, I decided I wanted to tank. I wanted to tank when I first started WoW (looked fun), but levelling a warrior proved to be a tad too challenging for me in that newbish state.
Now that I have the patience and the experience within the system, I'm planning on going through with my original objectives.
Currently, I'm levelling both a warrior and a paladin alongside eachother. Warrior is sitting at level 27 and the paladin at level 31. I'm currently at a loss at which one I should be following through with. I'm thinking that I will probably be levelling both to 70 before I finally decide which one is going to go the distance and do the real tanking.
The warrior definitely is the better at damage mitagation against one target. It's apparent even at this level, shield block is MUCH better than redoubt.
Incidentally, prot pallies (thanks to redoubt and reckoning, which most tanks don't rely on I hear) handle 2-3 targets better than they handle one. Interesting reversal.
I would suggest that if you want to go into endgame raiding, warriors are not only the old standby, but are more effective at damage mitagation. And the spec (yep, levelling the warrior prot, I'm a little on the crazy side) is more active and challenging to play, if you like that sort of thing.
Paladins are the casual's tank. Nothing wrong with that, but many times when doing 5 mans and heroics, they seem to idiot proof the runs. This is making them VERY popular for good reason. Once you get into endgame raiding, their need for uncrushable gear (warriors get it through talents alone) hurts their mitagation. AoE tanking is fun, and levelling is definitely much smoother.
Decide how far you want to go, then stick to it.
Quarion Jun 5th 2008 8:42PM
First of all, let me tell you from experience how little starting characters say about the end result. I loved my pally to bits in the last 20 levels but hated it before.
Secondly, what you mean with uncrushable is all a matter of perspective, google uncrushable prot paladin and you'll get a bunch of lists with gear that combined give you uncrushable stats before setting one step into Kara. The only 'hassle' is that gearing a prot pally requires a great deal of thinking and creating balance between your stats, so I guess it can be a problem if you don't want to think too deeply about stuff like that.
emoser Jun 2nd 2008 11:25AM
I've played bear tank, pally tank, and prot warrior (that last only to 55) and I've enjoyed the pally tank the most. Their approach to tanking is different and in certain situations (read: AoE situations) they're unlike any other tank. I've definitely found the pally the most interesting hands down.
And hate to nitpick... but 'funnest' is simply not a word. This is the type of thing the editors of WoW Insider should keep an eye out for in official posts if you guys want to be taken more seriously!
Eliah Hecht Jun 2nd 2008 11:26AM
Come on then, define to me what is and is not a word. I thought pretty seriously about whether to include "funnest" in the post. Be warned that I have a degree in linguistics ;)
emoser Jun 2nd 2008 11:48AM
Hey Eliah--I'm not trying to give you crap about this or anything, just trying to help.
According to dictionary.com, both 'funner' and 'funnest' are "informal or non-standard". I guess my definition of what is and isn't a word is what contemporary dictionaries say ;-)
If you want to get into a linguistics discussion, then sure... much like things like 'hella' among the kids, terms that aren't technically words that ultimately find widespread use become de facto 'words'. Follow that to the extreme, and then l8tr will soon be a 'word' as well!
Eliah Hecht Jun 2nd 2008 11:52AM
Well, I'd say this blog is a fairly informal setting.
Dictionaries tend to lag behind words that many people consider acceptable. Good luck finding "imba" in American Heritage ;) But seriously, whether something's a word is, in my opinion, defined quite simply by the feelings of the community of speakers. Most of the people I talk with are perfectly fine with "funner"; in fact, we've mostly stopped even noticing that it sounds a bit new. As far as I know there's no good reason for the non-wordliness of "funnest" anyway, as other similar words ("big", "slim") are perfectly compatible with the "-est" suffix.
It just irks me when people speak out against language change%u2026sure, "l8r" is a bit irritating, as is "ur" to me, but surely "funner" doesn't quite evoke the same mild rage. I'm just trying to patch a hole in our mutt of a language here :)
Zali Jun 2nd 2008 12:38PM
Sorry to burst the bubbles of anyone objecting to the word "funnest." It is most definitly a word. Your mother and English teachers were wrong if they told you otherwise. Funnest is known as a superlative. In grammer a superlative is a grouping of words that are used to express a higher level of a particular adjative or adverb. If something is small, you would use the superlative "smaller" to express a greater degree of small. If something is fun, then it could be funner than something else that is also fun, and WOW, of course, would be "Funnest," superlativly speaking.
Here, I'll give a sentence as an example:
"Reading WOW Insider is fun, mocking ignorant trolls on WOW Insider is funner, but playing my Boomkin is the funnest of all."
Thus ends the current lesson and smackdown!
emoser Jun 2nd 2008 1:16PM
Superlatives don't simply work in every case, especially because 'fun' is also a noun. I'm not alone in this...
http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/152567
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060916150002AAgpc5B
...do the search yourself for more supporting evidence.
This has gotten a bit out of control, and to Eliah's point it IS something that language is evolving into either naturally or as a result of people forcing the issue like this guy...
http://www.makefunneraword.com/
Bottom line is that to me it sounds lazy... not quite as bad as l8r or 'ur' for 'you're'. But maybe I'm just too old. If WoW Insider is comfortable being less formal and using terms like this, that's their call. I work in the web in the gaming industry and I know it's just not a term I'd want to see used on my site unless I was trying to be ironic and talk like the kids do ;-)